key military formation. At this point Augustus was able to use the Tumult of Thorn (Toruń) to his political advantage. The tumult was a religious disturbance and confrontation involving Catholics and Protestants (Lutherans), followed by a verdict of the state court, which sentenced ten Protestants to death. The affair reflected general deterioration of religious tolerance in the Commonwealth, was widely condemned abroad and only the death of Peter I prevented a foreign military intervention prepared in response, with the participation of Frederick William I of Prussia. Augustus refused to intercede on behalf of the condemned and his standing among the unrepentant and unyielding szlachta improved. Subsequent efforts to normalize Poland's foreign relations came to an end when the Commonwealth became engulfed in factional fighting, of which the two recently formed great rival magnate camps, led respectively by the Czartoryski family and the Potocki family, were the main participants. The party of the newly-prominent Czartoryskis, known as the Familia, expressed patriotic concerns, displayed political activism, was of modern outlook and was connected to Augustus II. Its powerful members included August Aleksander Czartoryski, Fryderyk Michał Czartoryski and Stanisław Poniatowski, a highly accomplished general and diplomat, formerly in the service of Charles XII of Sweden. The Potockis camp attempted to counteract the rise of the Familia and united the majority of historically most outstanding families, including the Lithuanian clans of the Radziwiłłs, Sapiehas and Ogińskis; among their leaders were Józef Potocki and Teodor Andrzej Potocki, the Primate. The partisan, ruthless competition for top offices prevented central parliamentary function toward the end of the rule of Augustus II. Stanisław Konarski, a prominent pioneering reformer, condemned the breaking of the Sejm proceedings and defended the Familia'''s point of view in his debut as a publicist in 1732 (Conversation of a Country Gentleman with His Neighbor). Augustus II counted on the Familias support regarding the Polish succession of his son Frederick Augustus, but as Louis XV of France married Marie Leszczyńska, the chances of her father, the former king of short duration Stanisław Leszczyński, kept increasing, until he gained the support of both magnate camps and of much of szlachta's rank and file. But the powers which surrounded the Commonwealth opposed both candidacies. In order to control the situation within their weak Polish neighbor they concluded several pacts, beginning in 1720 in Potsdam between Russia and Prussia, which culminated with the Treaty of the Three Black